Corporate news: NHS IC works with DH and Connecting for Health to better understand Ministry of Defence referrals

Primary care for Armed Forces personnel is generally the responsibility of the single service primary healthcare organisations (Army, Royal Navy and RAF). We have been working with the Department of Health and Connecting for Health to better understand MoD referrals into NHS secondary care.

Secondary care is the responsibility of the NHS. Funding for of secondary care for members of the Armed Forces is determined by the type of referral:

  • Where the referral is via a standard NHS pathway including non-elective care – care should be funded by the PCT where the MoD medical centre of the resident Armed Forces population is located.
  • Where the requirement varies from the standard NHS pathways in either the treatment requested or management requirements (e.g. fastrack care or non-standard treatment) – non-standard care arrangements are normally the subject of specific MoD contracts or by prior agreement with the MoD referrer.
    Where MoD fund non-standard secondary care, the code “XMD” should replace the PCT code for data submission and payment purposes.

All MoD medical centres have been issued with an NHS Practice code, which will be published and maintained in the Organisation Data Service (ODS) GP Practice quarterly file. They are due to be released on 25 February 2011. If required sooner, these codes appeared in the December 2011 GP Practice amendment file available from the ODS Team.

Each MoD medical centre is associated to the PCT where it is based. These practice codes will now appear on all MoD referral letters and where the MoD has access to Choose & Book.

NHS trusts are asked to update their local systems to include the ODS coding for the MoD medical centres and include these codes when submitting datasets including commissioning datasets.